Australia is under pressure because of a war crimes controversy to reject Sri Lanka's choice of a senior military commander as its next top envoy in Canberra.

A former Sri Lankan navy chief, Thisara Samarasinghe, has reportedly been nominated to fill the vacant position of high commissioner to Australia.

But the Herald understands Foreign Affairs - which must decide if it will accept the nomination - sees the appointment as ''problematic'' for Australia amid calls for a United Nations investigation into human rights violations in Sri Lanka.Advertisement: Story continues below

The issue also threatens to derail Australia's official co-operation with Sri Lanka on immigration controls and asylum seekers fleeing the aftermath of the country's long civil war with Tamil separatists.

No specific allegation of war crimes arising from the conflict has been made against Vice-Admiral Samarasinghe, who took over as chief of the Sri Lankan Navy in July 2009 after the end of the civil war.

But Tamil community leaders in Australia have demanded that the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, reject the nomination in protest at Sri Lanka's refusal to allow an international war crimes tribunal.

''[The nomination] clearly shows Sri Lanka is … becoming a military state,'' said Sam Pari, of the Australian Tamil Congress. ''Their diplomatic posts are being taken over by military or former military personnel and I think that's a very, very worrying sign.''

Foreign Affairs and the Sri Lankan high commission in Canberra declined to discuss the nomination.

The bitter 26-year conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - which demanded a homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil ethnic minority - ended in May 2009 after government troops finally crushed the insurgents.

Thousands of civilians were trapped inside a military cordon in the island nation's north-east in the closing phase of the conflict as government troops hemmed in remnants of the militants and pounded the area with heavy artillery, mortars and combat aircraft.

Aid groups complained that Sri Lankan forces deliberately targeted civilians during the fighting, especially in the province of Mullaitivu, while the government accused the Tamil Tigers of imprisoning locals for use as human shields.

United Nations estimates at the time put the civilian death toll at more than 6500 in the four months before Mullaitivu was finally overrun. About 300,000 Tamils were forced to flee the violence to emergency camps.

The fighting sparked the 2009 exodus of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, many of them later attempting to reach Australia by boat from Indonesia.

Vice-Admiral Samarasinghe commanded operations in the country's eastern and northern waters during the final three years of the fighting.

He retired from the navy 10 days ago and media reports say he is expected to be Colombo's next representative in Canberra.

But the former NSW attorney-general and Supreme Court justice John Dowd - who is collecting evidence for the International Commission of Jurists to present to an eventual war crimes tribunal in Sri Lanka - said the nomination of a senior military commander raised concerns.

''It's very difficult to see how anyone in a senior command position … is not going to have a likelihood of allegations of war crimes, and indeed evidence of war crimes,'' Mr Dowd said.

Mr Dowd said he had recorded stories of shelling of civilians from naval vessels during the war in Sri Lanka.

The posting of a retired general, Janaka Perera, in 2001 sparked protests but he remained high commissioner until 2005.

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